General Question

What books have most impacted your life?

I know for most of us, we could develop a list that goes on and on, but how about just 2 or 3 for this specific question. Choose the most influential pieces of literature, those that resonated deep with your heart and soul and shook the very foundations you tred upon, and give us a list.

33 Answers

I’l start this out. My favorite little pessimist is Holden Caufield, who uses his extreme negativity to paint some very insightful realities. Thus, Catcher in the Rye came at an opportune time to open my mind to the world around me.

And then I cannot leave out TOrthodoxy along with The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton. I owe a number of my personal beliefs to this man right here.

I know you said 2 or 3 but I can’t help it, sorry…
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Matthew Flinders’ Cat by Bryce Courtenay
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (not in that HP shook my foundations but because they filled much of my childhood)

1) The Way of Zen by Alan Watts
2) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
3) Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
4) Voodoo Science by Robert L. Park
5) On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
6) His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell
The Demon-haunted World by Carl Sagan
The Chicago Manual of Style
The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen
Cocktail by Paul Harrington
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Europe through the Back Door by Rick Steves

I know this sounds ridiculous, but one for me is The Street Lawyer by John Grisham. It helped me to recognize the racist beliefs that I had grown up with and made me start to look at my fellow man with a new, more open mind.

1. ‘The Forsyte Saga’ by John Galsworthy (the power of beauty)
2. ‘Atlas Shrugged’ by Ayn Rand (rational selfishness)
3. Magister Ludi – The Glass Bead Game’ by Herman Hesse (the beauty of high rationality and its impracticality)
4. ‘Jew Suss’ by Lion Feuchwanger (The complexity of being jewish)
5. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carrol ( A powerful memory of childhood)
6. ‘Godel, Escher, Bach: Eternal Golden Braid’ by Douglas Hoffstadter (my dissertation, if I were a better scholar)
7. ‘A history of the jews’ by Paul Johnson (the simplicity of being jewish)
8. ‘Throguh the Children’s Gate’ by Adam Gopnik (some deep truths about being a parent)
9. ‘On Death and Dying’ by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (helped me more or less overcome fear of death)

David Eddings The Belgariad and The Mallorean.
The Hobbit.
The reason they changed me was that I had never been aware that words could move me or make my mind see clearer than my eyes could. They paved the way for me to become an avid reader and lover of words. They hold a special place in my heart as my first literary loves.